menace of death, the vague but real threat of dying at the hands of someone who doesn't even know you, only knows what you are, what you represent to them. I grew up with it. The first time I left the academy grounds, to go on a hike with my friends, I was attacked. The first time."

He paused. "This undeclared, unrecognized war has been fought for a hundred and fifty-seven years. Its casualties- have always been on my side. And when this killing began, what did EarthGov do about it? They built a telepath ghetto called Teeptown, and they gave us badges to mark us, separate us. They gave any normal who wanted to kill a telepath the means to find us and identify us. Then they used telepaths to control telepaths. Why? The implicit threat was always there-ask any telepath old enough to remember. Either you control yourselves, or we will control you.

"That was the choice I grew up with. Hunt down and sometimes kill my own kind, with the blessings of EarthGov and every normal citizen who voted for it, or be subjected to the same uncontrolled genocide that was visited on us in the beginning.

"You made that, each and every one of you. Oh, you might try to pawn it off on your ancestors, but you reified it each generation, gave it the nod. I spent the first seventy-two years of my life being told what a good little boy I was, how well I served humanity by hunting down my people. I have the commendations to prove it, a drawerful.

"Now, suddenly, you've decided that maybe Psi Corps wasn't such a good idea, and you want to sweep it all under the rug. You want to pretend it just went bad, somehow, and that it was my fault. You also know that isn't true.

"You blame me for continuing to fight the war that started in 2115? You blame me for defending my people? I suppose you ПредыдущаяСледующая